Effects of social anxiety and evaluative threat on cardiovascular responses to active performance situations

This study investigated the joint influence of trait social anxiety and evaluative threat on psychological and cardiovascular responses to active coping situations. Fifty-two normotensive female students characterized as either high or low in trait social anxiety performed a mental arithmetic task and a speech task requiring persuasive behavior in a context of high or low evaluative threat. Trait social anxiety exerted a substantial influence on cardiovascular reactivity. High socially anxious individuals overall exhibited greater heart rate reactivity. For systolic and diastolic blood pressure enhanced reactivity of socially anxious individuals was confined to low evaluative threat. At high levels of evaluative threat no group differences were observed due to somewhat attenuated reactivity in high compared to low socially anxious individuals. Cognitive appraisals and affective arousal were not found to mediate the effects of social anxiety on cardiovascular reactivity. Results were attributed to differences in effort expenditure rather than experienced anxiety.     

A brief positive psychological intervention prior to a potentially stressful task facilitates more challenge‐like cardiovascular reactivity in high trait anxious individuals

When confronted with stress, anxious individuals tend to evaluate the demands of an upcoming encounter as higher than the available resources, thus, indicating threat evaluations. Conversely, evaluating available resources as higher than the demands signals challenge. Both types of evaluations have been related to specific cardiovascular response patterns with higher cardiac output relative to peripheral resistance indicating challenge and higher peripheral resistance relative to cardiac output signaling threat. The aim of this research was to evaluate whether a brief positive psychological exercise (best possible selves intervention) prior to a potentially stress‐evoking task shifted the cardiovascular profile in trait anxious individuals from a threat to a challenge type. We randomly assigned 74 participants to either a best possible selves or a control exercise prior to performing a sing a song stress task and assessed their level of trait anxiety. Cardiac output (CO) and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were continuously recorded through baseline, preparation, stress task, and recovery, respectively, as well as self‐reported affect. Trait anxiety was related to higher CO in the best possible selves group and lower CO in the control group. While high trait anxious individuals in the control group showed increasing TPR reactivity, they exhibited a nonsignificant change in the best possible selves group. Moreover, in the latter group a stress‐related decrease in positive affect in high trait anxious participants was prevented. Findings suggest that concentrating on strengths and positive assets prior to a potentially stressful encounter could trigger a more adaptive coping in trait anxious individuals.     

The psychophysiology of social anxiety: Emotional modulation of the startle reflex during socially-relevant and -irrelevant pictures

The present study examined affective processes of social anxiety (SA) through emotional modulation of the startle reflex. Eighty-four high and low trait socially anxious undergraduates viewed socially-relevant and socially-irrelevant pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures, and acoustic startle probes were presented during pictures and the inter-trial interval. Startle was potentiated during unpleasant compared to pleasant stimuli, but this valence modulation did not reliably vary between groups or socially-relevant and -irrelevant stimuli. However, when participants were categorized based on public-speaking fears rather than general SA symptoms, the high fear group demonstrated reliable valence modulation, whereas the low fear group did not. These findings are interpreted within the context of the broader literature suggesting that the specificity of fear in SA may influence psychophysiological reactivity.     

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a function of state anxiety in healthy individuals.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was examined in relation to state and trait anxiety in healthy individuals. Time-frequency analyses of HR-power spectrum in the high frequency region (0.12-0.40 Hz), related to RSA, were examined in 43 women and 39 men. Based on median split, the participants were divided into high and low state and trait anxiety groups. The main result showed that high state anxious individuals had higher RSA-magnitude (HF-power) than low state anxious individuals. The higher RSA-magnitude in the former group was interpreted as reflecting increased attention or vigilance together with motor and behavioural inhibition. No significant effects of trait anxiety or gender were found.     

Gender differences in psychophysiological responses to speech stress among older social phobics:: congruence and incongruence between self-evaluative and cardiovascular reactions

OBJECTIVE: Evidence suggests increased cardiovascular risk and autonomic impairment among individuals with chronic anxiety. Little attention, however, has been paid to the anxiety disorder of social phobia despite its high prevalence. Additionally, gender- and age-related cardiovascular profiles have not been examined in relation to social phobia. This study investigated cardiovascular responses to a socially threatening situation among older men and women with social phobia and control subjects. METHODS: Thirty subjects with social phobia and 30 control subjects (mean age = 65 years) were assessed during baseline, paced breathing, speech preparation, and speech presentation. Electrocardiographic variables, blood pressure, respiration, and emotional state (self-reported) were monitored. Hemodynamic variables included heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, and systemic vascular resistance; autonomic measures were respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baroreflex sensitivity, both markers of cardiac vagal control, and 0.10-Hz systolic blood pressure variability, an index of sympathetic vasomotor tone. RESULTS: Subjects with social phobia, in contrast to nonanxious control subjects, manifested more anxiety, embarrassment, and somatic complaints in response to stress; however, physiological measures generally did not distinguish groups. Interaction effects indicated that socially phobic women were hyperresponsive to the stressor with respect to self-reported, hemodynamic, and autonomic parameters. Socially phobic men manifested no physiological differences in comparison with control subjects, but they reported more psychological and somatic complaints. CONCLUSIONS: Gender differences in subjective and physiological responses to a socially threatening situation indicate congruence between perceived social anxiety and physiological responses in older women but not men. We found no evidence of impaired cardiovascular autonomic regulation among socially phobic men despite other reports that phobically anxious men are at greater cardiovascular risk.     

Anxious gambling: Anxiety is associated with higher frontal midline theta predicting less risky decisions

In this study, we address the effect of anxiety measured with the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) on EEG and risk decisions. We selected 20 high and 20 low anxious participants based on their STAI trait scores in the upper or lower quartile of the norm distribution and implemented a risk game developed in our laboratory. We investigate if high anxious individuals exert more cognitive control, reflected in higher frontal midline theta (FMT) power when they make a risky decision, and if they act less risky compared to low anxious individuals. Participants played a risk game while we recorded their brain responses via EEG. High anxious participants played less risky compared to low anxious participants. Further, high anxious participants showed higher FMT power immediately before they chose one of two risk options, suggesting higher cognitive control during the decision time compared to low anxious participants. Via a mediation analysis, we show that the effect of anxiety on risk behavior is fully mediated by FMT power. Further, questionnaire responses revealed that high anxious participants rated risk situations as riskier compared to low anxious participants. We conclude that anxious individuals perceive risky situations as riskier and thus exert more cognitive control during their risk choices, reflected in higher FMT power, which leads to less risky decisions.     

Sensation Seeking, Trait and State Anxiety, and the Electrodermal Orienting Response

The relationship between sensation seeking and the orienting reflex (OR) using skin conductance change is investigated in two experiments. In Experiment I, high sensation seekers gave a greater initial OR In novel visual stimuli while not differing in habituation on subsequent trials. In Experiment II. the paradigm was extended to include auditory as well as visual stimuli. Again, high sensation seekers were found to be more arousable with respect to initial ORs while not differing in habituation rates. The results suggest that sensation seekers may be characterized as having strong excitatory CNS processes. In Experiment II, anxiety (trait and state) was also related to the OR. There were no effects due to trait anxiety but state anxiety did yield significant differences. The more highly anxious (state) subjects had weaker initial ORs than lows in both novel tones, but not to repeated tones. The findings with state anxiety are consistent with findings by others using anxiety neurotics as subjects.     

The effects of contextual threat and anxiety on affective startle modulation

The startle reflex is attenuated and potentiated when participants are viewing pleasant and unpleasant images, respectively. Research demonstrates that threatening contexts also potentiate startle, but it remains unclear how a threatening context might impact startle modulation to emotional images, especially as a function of trait anxiety. The present study measured startle reactivity while 43 participants viewed pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images across conditions of threat-of-shock and safety (i.e., no shock). Compared to neutral images, startle was potentiated during unpleasant images and attenuated during pleasant images. Threat-of-shock potentiated startle during all picture types, suggesting that threat-of-shock broadly sensitized the defensive system but did not change affective modulation of startle. Lastly, higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with less startle potentiation during unpleasant images across both conditions—a finding in line with previous research demonstrating deficient threat mobilization in response to unpleasant stimuli among highly anxious individuals.     

The influence of anxiety on electrodermal responses to distractors.

Contrary to classical expectation, anxiety has been repeatedly observed to be associated with reduced electrodermal activity. This could be the result of successful coping. In line with this interpretation, high-trait anxious individuals performing moderately arousing tasks were expected to manifest a reduced responding to distractors, since this is an adaptive outcome. High- and low-trait anxious participants had to perform a visual search task in a low-stress context. Unrelated neutral and emotional auditory words served as distractors. As a control, neutral and emotional words were also delivered in a no task condition. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) were greater during the task than during the control phase, but in the high anxious group, this increase in SCRs was smaller following emotional distractors than following neutral ones. Moreover, SCRs to both types of words habituated, but the results suggested that only the low-trait anxious participants presented the classical slowing of SCRs habituation when performing the task. All these data are interpreted as an illustration of a resource-based electrodermal inhibition in the high-trait anxious participants. It sustains the idea that mild to moderate anxiety may increase the mastery of situations.     

Test-retest reliability of regional electroencephalogram (EEG) and cardiovascular measures in social anxiety disorder (SAD)

Although the search for psychophysiological manifestations of social anxiety has a rich history, there appear to be no published reports examining the reliability of continuous electrocortical measures that putatively index stress vulnerability and stress reactivity in socially anxious individuals. We examined the 1-week test-retest reliability of regional electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha asymmetry and power, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), heart period, and heart period variability measures at rest and during anticipation of an impromptu speech in 26 adults diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Across the 1-week time period, we found medium-to-large correlations for regional EEG asymmetry and large correlations for regional EEG alpha power, RSA, heart period, and heart period variability measures at rest and during speech anticipation, before and after accounting for age and medication status. These results are similar to patterns observed in nonclinical samples and appear to provide the first documented evidence of test-retest reliability of psychophysiological measures that index central nervous system activity in socially anxious individuals. These findings also provide support for the notion that resting frontal EEG asymmetry and RSA constitute relatively stable individual differences in this clinical population.     

Enhanced perceptual responses during visual processing of facial stimuli in young socially anxious individuals

The present study investigated whether social anxiety modulates the processing of facial expressions. Event-related potentials were recorded during an oddball task in young adults reporting high or low levels of social anxiety as evaluated by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. Repeated pictures of faces with a neutral expression were infrequently replaced by pictures of the same face displaying happiness, anger, fear or disgust. For all participants, response latencies were shorter in detecting faces expressing disgust and happiness as compared to fear or anger. Low social anxiety individuals evoked enhanced P1 in response to angry faces as compared to other stimuli while high socially anxious participants displayed enlarged P1 for all emotional stimuli as compared to neutral ones, and general higher amplitudes as compared to non-anxious individuals. Conversely, the face-specific N170 and the task-related decision P3b were not influenced by social anxiety. These results suggest increased pre-attentive detection of facial cues in socially anxious individuals and are discussed within the framework of recent models of anxiety.     

Muscle tension in generalized anxiety disorder: Elevated muscle tonus or agitated movement?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the amplitude characteristics of frontalis and gastrocnemius electro-myographic (EMG) activity in clinically anxious and nonanxious populations. Eighteen women with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 19 nonanxious women were compared during baseline, laboratory stressor, and recovery conditions. EMG mean levels were greater for the GAD group, but there were no group differences in EMG skewness. During the stressor the GAD group had a significant reduction in frontalis EMG variability. Gastrocnemius muscle activity for both groups during the stressor condition increased in mean levels and variability while decreasing in skewness. These results indicate that clinically anxious individuals have elevated muscular tonus and have reduced variability in frontalis activity during stressful tasks. Also, the gastrocnemius muscle exhibited a stressor reactivity, whereas the frontalis did not. This study presents an approach to EMG analysis that could be useful in distinguishing unique features of anxiety as well as other emotional disorders.     

The time course of autonomic parameters and muscle tension during recovery following a moderate cognitive stressor: Dependency on trait anxiety level

It has proved difficult to demonstrate the differences in physiological response in individuals with contrasting trait anxiety levels. The purpose of this study was to examine tonic autonomic activity and muscle tension in male subjects with different levels of trait anxiety during and especially after a stressful situation. Twenty-eight low anxiety (LA) and thirty-one high anxiety (HA) individuals performed a video-recorded Stroop color-word interference test. Heart rate, skin conductance level, finger temperature, electromyographic activity of gastrocnemius and trapezius muscles were recorded; state anxiety and valence of thought content were assessed. Physiological activity increased during the stressful situation, whatever the group. However, prolonged gastrocnemius muscle tension and prolonged decrease in finger temperature were found in HA subjects after the stressful situation, but not in LA subjects. These results suggest that physiological recovery following a moderate cognitive stressor could depend on trait anxiety level.     

Repressive coping style and positive self‐presentation

Objective: This paper reviews 59 studies looking at cognitive, individual differences and physiological correlates of the repressive coping style, as defined by Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson (1979). A central aim is to evaluate the relative importance of the anxiety and social desirability components of repression. Thus, the empirical study investigates the relationships between repression and a number of relevant, but hitherto unexamined, constructs, including trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), self‐estimated intelligence, functional and dysfunctional impulsivity, and stoicism. It was hypothesized that repressors would score higher than the other three groups on trait EI, self‐estimated IQ and functional impulsivity, but lower on dysfunctional impulsivity. Method: In total, 259 (174 females) participants from three British universities completed questionnaires measuring the dependent and independent variables. Participants were divided into four groups (truly low anxious, non‐defensive/high anxious, defensive/high anxious and repressors) based on their scores on anxiety and social desirability. Analyses (moderated multiple regressions and ANOVAs) were conducted both on the total sample as well as on ‘extreme‐scoring’ individuals. Results: Where there were significant differences, the hypotheses were supported, particularly with respect to trait EI, self‐estimated IQ and impulsivity. Using ‘extreme‐scoring’ groups did not effectively change the results. The regressions revealed an absence of significant interactions between anxiety and social desirability. Conclusion: Results are discussed in terms of the now replicated effect that repressors present a highly positive and optimistic self‐image, despite cognitive and behavioural data suggesting that their coping style is psychologically unhealthy. In addition, it is argued that many findings in the repressive coping style literature can be parsimoniously explained through main effects of anxiety or social desirability alone (i.e., without invoking a construct that combines the two).     

A repressive coping style and affective, facial and physiological responses to looking at emotional pictures.

Previous studies have demonstrated increased physiological-emotional responses despite relatively low self-reported affect for individuals with a repressive coping style, as compared to control groups. The main question in the current study was whether such group differences could also be demonstrated by using the picture perception methodology of Lang. A second question was whether differences between these groups could be found in the habituation of physiological and emotional responses. Repressors (n=14), 'truly' low anxious participants (n=14), and moderately high anxious participants (n=13) were selected with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. Two sets of 27 pictures with alternating neutral, threatening and sexual content were presented whilst valence and arousal ratings, skin conductance, heart rate and facial muscle responses were measured. No straightforward group differences were found. However, the results suggest that differential habituation, and not a repressive coping style, may contribute to differential self-reported, facial and physiological-emotional responses.     

Covert and overt attention in trait anxiety: a cognitive psychophysiological analysis

The effect of threatening cues and anxiety upon attention within a Posner paradigm was investigated in two experiments. It was predicted anxious individuals would show a bias to threat-related material. Heart rate and eye movements were obtained to assess the attentional processes associated with this cognitive bias. Sixty and 40 participants were allocated respectively to groups based on self-reported scores of anxiety and repressive coping style. All participants were exposed to threat and non-threat cue words within a word based Posner cueing task. In the second study, spatial position of the target was manipulated, together with instructional set. Differential patterns of attentional disengagement to threat were found that were modulated by trait anxiety in study 2. A bias towards threat involving uninstructed eye movements was observed amongst anxious participants. Repressors made few such eye movements. Findings are discussed in relation to models of attentional deployment to threat.     

Social anxiety in adolescents: the effect of video feedback on anxiety and the self‐evaluation of performance

Background: A negative self‐generated image is thought to play a role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety. Video feedback (VF) is an effective therapeutic technique for correcting this distorted image with adults during stressful social tasks. This study investigated the effectiveness of VF with adolescents. Method: Thirty‐six highly socially anxious adolescents (13 to 17‐year‐olds) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: VF or no VF. Both groups gave two brief speeches to a video camera. Self‐rated measures of anticipatory anxiety, predicted performance and actual performance during the speeches were completed at several time points. The speeches were also rated by two independent observers. Results: Adolescents who received VF, in comparison with control participants, developed more positive appraisals of their performance during the first speech. Predictions of their performance on the second speech also improved, and a reduction in state anxiety was observed. Furthermore, a more positive appraisal of performance was generalized to the second speech. The independent observers could not distinguish between the participants who received VF and those who did not. Conclusions: When used with socially anxious adolescents, VF may be a beneficial therapeutic technique in correcting a distorted self‐perception of performance, reducing anxiety prior to entering a stressful social task and enhancing predictions of performance for future tasks. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Baseline and affective startle modulation by angry and neutral faces in 4-8-year-old anxious and non-anxious children

The present study examined the magnitudes of startle blink reflexes and electrodermal responses in 4-8-year-old high anxious children (N=14) and non-anxious controls (N=11). Responses were elicited by 16 auditory startle trials during a baseline phase prior to an affective modulation phase involving 12 startle trials presented during angry and neutral faces. Results showed significant response habituation across baseline trials and equivalent response magnitudes between groups during the baseline phase. The modulation of response magnitudes during angry and neutral faces did not differ significantly in either group. However, high anxious children showed larger responses overall compared with non-anxious control children during the affective modulation phase. Moreover, greater anxiety severity and larger startle reflexes were associated with poorer accuracy in rating neutral faces as neutral in high anxious children. Results may reflect elevated reactivity to threat contexts in 4-8-year-old high anxious versus non-anxious children.     

Startle response potentiation to chemosensory anxiety signals in socially anxious individuals

The present study aimed to investigate whether withdrawal related behavior is activated in the context of chemosensory anxiety signals. Moreover, it was examined whether chemosensory perception of social stress is modulated by the degree of social anxiety. Axillary sweat was collected from students, awaiting an oral examination at the university (anxiety condition) and from the same students in a sport control condition. The chemosensory stimuli were presented to 32 participants (16 socially anxious) via an olfactometer during inhalation (duration = 3 s). 102 dB white noise bursts served as startle probes. During a single session only male or female axillary sweat was presented, therefore, all participants were tested in two separate sessions. Even though the chemosensory stimuli were perceived at the perceptual threshold level, participants could identify (forced choice) the emotion of the donors in the anxiety condition. In the context of chemosensory anxiety signals the acoustic startle reflex was significantly augmented as compared to startle responses obtained in the context of sport sweat (p = 0.002). This effect was more pronounced in socially anxious than in non-anxious participants. It is concluded that human motor systems automatically adapt to chemosensory stress signals. This adaptation is neither dependent on the gender of the odor donor nor on the gender of the perceiver, but is intensified in socially anxious participants.     

Alpha oscillations as a correlate of trait anxiety.

The associations among psychometric measures of anxiety and depression and individually adjusted electroencephalogram (EEG) spectral power measures registered in resting condition and during experimental settings were investigated in 30 males aged 18-25 years. During all stages of registration, Taylor Manifest Anxiety and Spielberger state anxiety (SA) and trait anxiety (TA) scores were positively related to alpha and negatively to delta relative power with these relations being independent of cortical site. Within-subject estimate of the strength of reciprocal relationship between alpha and delta oscillations (alpha-delta anticorrelation, or ADA) was positively related to trait anxiety and depression. Three minutes after an alarming event (unexpected loud sound), a further increase of alpha power was observed. In low-anxiety subjects, this increase was mostly associated with fast alpha (alpha 3), whereas in high-anxiety ones, it was mainly linked to slow alpha (alpha 2). SA mediated relationship between TA and EEG power, while ADA and alpha band reactivity showed trait-like features being associated with TA even after accounting for SA. These findings are interpreted as an indication of higher vigilance and higher reactivity of alpha system in anxious individuals.